President Biden vowed on Friday to stay in the presidential race, telling a packed audience in Madison, Wis., that he would not bow to those calling for him to step down.
“Some people don’t seem to care who you vote for,” he told a crowd that chanted “Come on, Joe!” and waving signs. “Well, guess what? He tried to push me out of the race. Well, let me say this as clearly as I can. I’m still in the race!”
Mr. Biden began his speech strongly, speaking quickly and looking more ruddy than in a dangerous debate that asked whether he was too old to stay in the contest against former President Donald J. Trump.
In his words, it was held in a small, middle-school gym, which took the problem directly, saying it is not too old to create 15 million jobs, put the first Black woman in the Supreme Court or “defeat big Pharma.”
“I’m in Wisconsin for one reason,” he said, “because we’re going to win.”
Mr. Biden came into the country betting that his strong performance could be one of his last, best hopes to salvage a tumultuous presidential campaign.
But it’s unclear whether his brief midday speech — delivered on a teleprompter and seen by only a fraction of the tens of millions of Americans watching the debate — can begin to repair the political damage to his candidacy, regardless. he speaks fluently.
These actions take place under an intense political microscope. Every word Mr. Biden said during that rally, and later in a prime-time interview, was viewed through the lens of the twin questions that plagued the campaign: At 81, is he old? And he can still win?
For days, Mr. Biden’s team has been saying no, no, and yes, he can.
But it took more than a week for the president to schedule a rally in Madison and an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, his anger simmering for days. Democrats are building momentum for the idea that they should drop out of the race.
Some of the president’s biggest donors have signaled that they no longer trust him and are demanding proof that he can still do it before investing more in his campaign.
A group of 168 business executives and donors issued a letter Friday asking him to step aside, including Paul Tagliabue, the former NFL commissioner; John and Tom Florsheim, shoe company brothers; and Christy Walton, Walmart heiress.
Representative Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, becoming the third lawmaker to call on Mr. Biden to end his re-election bid, told a Boston radio station on Thursday that he should “follow one of our founding fathers, George Washington, step aside and let a new leader rise.”
Friday’s event was a test of whether Mr. Biden could meet those demands and silence critics, proving to skeptical supporters that he remains strong enough to battle Mr. Trump four months into the campaign.
After the speech, Mr. Biden sat down for his first taped televised interview since the debate in Atlanta raised concerns about his mental acuity. How he handles a question from ABC’s George Stephanopoulos could determine whether his re-election bid survives.
It will be his first major interview since the debate, and he’s sure to face tougher questions than during a friendly interview aired Thursday with two Black talk radio hosts, in which he tripped over words and made pairings. verbal gaffes. The full ABC interview will be broadcast at 8pm Eastern time.
The visit to Madison, the capital of a solidly Democratic campus city, is a fitting place for a high-profile moment as Mr. Biden tries to stem a wave of defections.
Many supporters at the rally said they were sticking with Mr. Biden, despite his struggles, and blamed the media for focusing on his age.
“I was so offended by the news,” said Tina Stratton, 61, a retired groundskeeper from Hortonville, southwest of Green Bay, wearing a Women’s T-shirt for Biden-Harris. “As soon as they decide they want to do this, I’ll be out there kicking Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.”
However, some younger voters said Mr. Biden’s poor debate performance had worried them and they came to the event to see how he would fare.
“If he continues to struggle, I’m going to have to have a real conversation” about him quitting, said Matthew Staats, 19, a student from Sheboygan. “But I hope he does well.”
Rohan Kommuru, 20, said many of his friends were “killed” at Mr Biden’s age.
“He has to prove to the American people that he is fit for office,” Mr Kommuru said.
Wisconsin, which will provide 10 electoral votes, is part of the president’s Midwest firewall, the collection of Rust Belt states that he must win if he hopes to spend four years in the White House. Even before last week’s debate, polls showed him locked in a tight race with Mr Trump in the state, which Mr Biden won in 2020 by about 20,000 votes out of more than 3.2 million cast.
The state is also ground zero for a years-long battle over election procedures that could help determine the outcome of another extremely close race. On Friday, just an hour before came Air Force One, the liberal members of the Wisconsin Supreme Court overturned an earlier ruling by a conservative judge banning the use of absentee-ballot drop boxes in elections.
The change would only benefit Mr. Biden if he remains on the ballot in November. Democrats tend to do better in early voting, and Mr. Trump has railed against the practice as fraudulent, urging supporters not to cast ballots early.
Now, Mr. Biden’s future may depend on how well he appeals to voters in Wisconsin, who have gone back and forth in the past two presidential elections. His appearance on Friday was his fifth visit to the country this year. In January, he visited the Blatnik Bridge in Superior, Wis., to promote infrastructure legislation. In May, he was in Racine, Wis., to promote the construction of an AI data center.
Mr. Biden had planned to give another speech on Sunday, at a meeting of the National Education Association in Philadelphia. But the campaign said on Friday that the speech was canceled after union staff declared a strike over working conditions.
In a statement, a campaign spokesman said: “President Biden is a supporter of labor unions and he will not cross the picket line. The president still plans to travel to Pennsylvania this weekend, and we will have more details to share at a later date.”
During the Republican National Convention this month, Mr. Biden plans to travel to Las Vegas and speak to the NAACP and UnidosUS conferences, the campaign said Friday.
